MUNCIE, Ind. — For teachers educating their students about the presidential election and fielding the questions students bring from home, the past year has been particularly difficult.

As the campaigns got nasty, language got foul and passions among supporters rose. Teachers found themselves comforting students and diffusing potential arguments. And some say their work isn't over now that Donald Trump has been elected.

One thing the handful of teachers who talked to The Star Press agree on: Teaching about this election was definitely different and more challenging than usual.

On Wednesday morning, hours before Hillary Clinton had made her concession speech, fourth-grade teacher Deanna Harshman was comforting one of her students at Storer Elementary. The young girl, who is multiracial, was in tears out of fear after seeing something on TV, Harshman said.

"She thought she was going to be sent back to Africa," Harshman said. "I had to console her."

She said teachers were looking at each other with concern as students filed in Wednesday morning. They were "eerily quiet," she said.

"They hear this on the news," she said. "Do they really know what it means to build a wall? No, but they hear it, and they pick up on more than you think."

Earlier in the year, she said a student had refused to make an advertisement for himself during the student council election because he thought it would have to degrade his fellow classmates.

"When you have both candidates on those debates saying what they were saying and doing what they’re doing … it's opposite of what you’re trying to teach them," Harshman said.

Erin Smith, an engineering teacher, said she's also heard students at Central High School express concerns about being deported.

"It wasn't every day or anything, but once is enough, and I would say I have heard those sort of concerns at school more than once," she said. "I don't really want to bring politics into school since I don't teach social studies. I am an advocate for many of our students who I feel are in need of an advocate, and more importantly need to know that I understand them, empathize with them and care for them."

After Trump was elected, she said she reached out to some of her students to tell them she understood their concerns. She said she also reminded them that "not every person who voted for Trump was racist, and that we all have to respect each other."

When asked about how Central students were treating each other, economics teacher Jack Jordan said he hadn't had any problems in class.

"At least in my observation anyway I think that they’ve been very mature about it," he said. "In a lot of cases, more mature then a lot of my adult friends."

In the classroom, teachers said they focus on learning about the election process, American's constitutional rights and the facts, not the candidates.

Delta High School government teacher Biff Wilson said it would have been easy this year to "get a class riled up really quickly." And that some teachers do a better job of suppressing their passion for a candidate than others.

"I think there were a lot of opportunities for adults to voice very strong and passionate opinions," he said. "And I think for many adults it was very hard not to."

Often, he said, when a student repeated a catch phrase, like "Lock her up," or an untrue political statement, it was something they had heard from a family member. He said he diffuses the situation by not saying that person is wrong, but instead questioning the statement with an opposing fact.

"I'm not going to tell them how to think," he said. "I just want them to think."

Pat Kennedy, a speech and language pathologist at Southview Elementary, said teachers will likely keep fielding difficult questions through the next four years "if Trump continues with judgmental attitudes and offensive language."

"Every day we work with kids to instill the values of acceptance and kindness toward others, which includes appropriate communication," she said. "How will we explain that the president of our country does not share those values?"